Summary Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

Selfish people are easy to come by. Sometimes, people who act selfishly can find themselves in some unwanted situations. In A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Conner, this is presented when a family consisting of two parents, two children, and a grandmother are venturing off on a trip to Florida. When the grandmother has a sudden desire to visit an old plantation she had once been to, they find themselves in a car accident. As they see a car coming towards, they are hoping for a nice person to come help them. Who shows up ends up being The Misfit, a criminal who escaped from prison. In this story, O’Conner uses diction, details, and mood to show the grandmother’s development from a manipulative, egocentric, and abrasive person to a more

The grandmother’s main concern is that she wants everyone to know that, first and foremost, she is a lady. Her outfits are very lady like with her “navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print” (O’Conner 1143). This style of outfit gives off a very ladylike and well put together impression. O’Conner uses this detail of the grandmother’s outfit to show that while she looks like a lady and a good person, it is actually known that her personality is undesirable. Following this, when The Misfit has found the grandmother and her family, The Misfit is obviously planning to kill them. In an attempt to change his mind, she says, “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people” (O’Conner 1150). She uses the phrases “common blood” and “nice people” to insinuate that The Misfit comes from a family that depicts old southern values. This is her way to trying to flatter The Misfit in hopes of him sparing her life. This really highlights her bad personality and shows that she only cares about herself. Just after the family’s accident later on, she was “hoping she was injured so that Bailey’s wrath would not come down on her all at once” (O’Conner 1148). This displays indifference and apathy. Similarly, this shows that she is only worrying about herself in this time that

Throughout the story, there is generally tense mood. The way the audience feels during the story highlights the way the grandmother works around other people. On their car ride through Georgia, she recalls an old plantation she had once been to. In describing the plantation, she continues to build up the plantation and make it sound a lot more appealing than it actually is, making sure that she can persuade her family into agreeing to visit it. The grandmother “knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house” (O’Conner 1146), but she continues to try and convince them to go anyways. This gives off a tense mood because it is known that Bailey does not want to go to the plantation, yet he does anyways to please the grandmother. Towards the end, the tense mood is amplified when the grandmother is confronted by The Misfit. In the back of her head, she knows The Misfit wants to kill her and her family. In an attempt to save her own life, she says many things to try and get The Misfit to change his mind. She uses God as an attempt to save her life and says, “If you would pray, Jesus would help you” (O’Conner 1152). As stated earlier, she tries to use old southern values, religion being most important, to charm her way out of her current situation. In this instance, she is using God and the promise of God’s forgiveness to change The Misfit’s mind. Furthermore, near the